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The Prodigy related articles from magazines.

KERRANG!

Interview with M�rat

November 1997

"PUNK ROCKERS!
Hip-hoppers! Pill-poppers! And showstoppers!"
Pick a night, any night, and the level of noise and
excitement is insane as the compere bounds on-stage
with these galvanising opening words and introduces
the greatest live band on the face of the planet. The
Prodigy enter in a blur of madness and volume, their
bass sounds a vast sonic BOOM! that shakes through the
whole building and which, at Ilford Island, has
even bought dust down from the ceiling. Frontmen Keith
Flint and Maxim Reality, respectively a deranged clown
released as part of a care in the community programme
and a wild eyed satanic ringmaster, writhe and cavort,
imbibing the energy and mayhem and spitting it right
back out again. Their opening gambit is a
live-wire fusion of hip-hop, techno, punk-rock and gloriously
un-PC chaos entitled "Smack My Bitch Up".
Welcome once more to the Prodigy Experience.....
Having played to some 50,000 people on their recent
sell-out UK tour and headlined Reading, Phoenix, T in
the Park and dozens of European festivals, there can
be no doubt Prodigy fever is spreading like a contagious
and incurable disease. But while many of the population
have been infected for five years or more, every one
of the band's singles having made the UK Top 15, the
fever was at least limited to the rave scene.

But on March 24,
1996, a song called 'Firestarter' entered the charts
at Number One and caused an epidemic. It sold half-a-million
copies in the UK alone, and stayed at the top
of the charts for 3 weeks. The video provoked a record
number of complaints when it was aired on TV, and the
lyrics sparked outrage among tabloid newspapers who
supplied headlines like the 'Mail on Sundays "Ban
This Sick Fire Record". During their spring UK
dates, both the Smashing Pumpkins and the Presidents
of The USA played the song live and received a rapturous
response. Like some glorious sci-fi monster, The Prodigy
had mutated beyond recognition, added a genuine punk
rock guitarist, Gizz Butt, to their line-up and turning
into a terrifying awesome hybrid of everything that
makes music exciting. It matters very little that The
Prodigy have a dubious, some say embarrassing past.
What matters is now, and right now there is no one who
can touch them.

Trouble is, no
one can talk to them either, since they don't like doing
interviews and aren't planning to do any until the end
of next year at the earliest. Unless of course,
you follow them around the country, get pissed with
them, and ask them to sit down in front of a large tape
recorder and talk. Which is what Kerrang has done...

We join them backstage
at the final show of their UK Tour, at Readings Rivermead
Centre. The atmosphere is surprisingly relaxed, considering
the air of fevered expectation inside the venue itself.
Maxim, Gizz and dancer Leeroy Thornhill are of chillin
out. Flint and Liam Howlett, the genius behind The Prodigys
music, are sitting in a spartan room reflecting on their
increasingly heavy direction. Like Moby, The Prodigy
saw less and less energy in the dance scene, and having
played with the likes of Sepultra and Biohazard, turned
their attention to the rock scene.

"I guess
you get influenced by what you see", says Howlett,
"We just got bored with the typical sound of the
dance scene and wanted to expand on that, and that just
happens to be the way we went. It wasn't like a decision
to get heavier. " "Now, we don't have to blend
in with anything", adds Keith, "we can be
as heavy as we like. " And The Prodigy like it very
heavy. It's almost like the Es have worn off and they
have realised they don't really love everyone after
all. In the past two years, they've gone from "One
Love" to the aforementioned "Smack My Bitch
Up". "There were no lyrics before, so it's
not as if they've changed", argues Keith, "We've
just got some now that's all!" "As far
as writing happy tunes goes, that's just not my buzz,"
says Liam. "I have to write angry music - not like
Rage against the Machine, politically angry, but just
a reaction to the energy of the music that comes from
angry, hard sounds. " Was it annoying that
it took 'Firestarter' to arouse so much attention, when
previous material off your last album had been so successful?"Not
for me," reasons Liam, "because it's the only
song we've had in the charts apart from 'Poison' and
'Voodoo People' that I can hear again and get the samebuzz.
With all the other stuff, of course I get a buzz from
it, but it sounds old and dated now. Whereas 'Firestarter'
still sounds fresh if I hear it on the radio. "Or,
increasingly, on the TV. It has even been used on 'Eastenders'
to soundtrack one of Joe Wicks many breakdowns. "Yeah,
that was pretty funny - especially as they used it as
if it was the song that was making him go mad. "
chuckles Liam.

But what of the
controversy that surrounded 'Firestarter' - at one point
questions were asked in Parliament as to whether you
were advocating arson? "It didn't get as
far as the Houses of Parliament did it ?" frowns
Keith.Apparently. "That's cool !" grins the
loon with the multi-coloured hair. "It's a joke
though ,innit? I mean, if you did write a song which
said something as blatant as that, and it did happen,
then you'd write songs that said 'Give me money,
give me fucking money, give me really nice clothes,
give me really cool drugs, give me money' You
know, if it was that easy to get everyone to go along
with something................. "

The sentence remains
unfinished. Point made! One of the main reasons
The Prodigy work so well as a rock band is the simple
fact they didn't start off as one. They're operating
without any of the influences or boundaries which limit
their contemporaries. "Yeah I think so. "
Nods Liam. "We're not trying to say we are better
cause we're not copying anyone, because of course I
get influences from Rage against the Machine and stuff
like that. But I might also take influences that no
one else has looked at. I mean I've always been into
Hip-hop, so I'll never leave those beats, and if I'd
just been into rock I wouldn't have that knowledge.
To me, by adding guitar onto stuff in Jilted like 'Voodoo
People', we weren't trying to say 'Right, were now a
rock band', it was just natural progression. Rock music
is an attitude - it's not about the fact that you have
to have guitars. I mean there are so many good
electronic bands who are as heavy as rock bands. "
"I think one of our blessing in disguise is that
no one could ever really put a name on what we do,"
ponders Keith. "Maybe we had that techno thing
at first, but now no ones able to place us, cos we've
got one track like this and one that that's like that,
and it's all just what we do. "

Trouble is, The
Prodigy do it so well that venues just aren't big enough
for them anymore. They have just done two nights at
Brixton Academy and they could have easily sold it out
twice again. So where the hell do they go next? Arenas?
Stadiums?
"I'd rather keep it at the size we are now,"
says Liam. "The festivals are a buzz, but we definitely
don't want to get too big. Stadiums are shit. The problem
is when you leave Brixton and go on to do stadiums,
you suddenly get all this authority coming in and moaning
about noise levels. And you know how important that
is to us. "

The Prodigy are
a terrifyingly load band, but some people still aren't
convinced that they belong in Kerrang. Their appearance
has provoked more controversy than any band since Nirvana
were first featured. I've even received death threats
fro writing about them. Tell this Liam and he'll respond
with a look that tells you he doesn't give a fuck what
anyone thinks. "We don't want to appeal to everyone,"
he shrugs, "It's good for Kerrang to write about
us cause it opens up a lot of minds. But I think people
like to have their own scene, and they don't like bands
to come along who haven't got that rock history. We
can appreciate that and we don't want to come along
and say 'Yeah, we are the new rock gods!'. people can
either accept us or not. I mean when the Sex Pistols
came out a lot of people in rock music said 'What the
fuck is this shit.' Didn't they?"

"Now they
all swear they were at their first concert," hoots
Keith. "At the end of the day, we are not a trendy
band and I think that's cool, because we wont come and
go with the trends. We haven't relied upon being arty
and hanging out with all the celebs. We're out there
doing it because we love it!"Talking of the Sex
Pistols, there seems to be a hint of Johnny Rottens
infamous sneer in Keith's vocals on the Prodigys brilliant
new single 'Breathe'. "I don't think Keith's
got it in him to copy anyone. " insists Liam. "I
am not clever enough to pull it off. " cackles Keith.
"Well I didn't want to say that, but that's what
I meant," says Liam "I don't think there is
anything wrong in taking your inspiration from certain
things, but I still think we have released something
that's original with 'Breathe' . " Whether
you love them or despise them, there's no denying that
The Prodigy have moved on from their dance roots. The
stunning, menacing promo video for Breathe is more Marilyn
Manson than Orbital.

"Hopefully,
our fans can grow with us ," considers Liam. "I've
grown up, and the fans don't stay 16 forever. I mean
all the friends I was hanging out with at raves and
parties have all grown out of that sort of music and
now got into more rocky stuff. Now, they're coming up
and saying 'fucking hell', I like the new stuff. "
"More to the point, if we're not buzzing on-stage
then the people who follow us will think we've lost
something," says Keith "But when we do 'Fuel
my Fire' (the demented L7 cover version) you just feel
like 'Here we fucking go'. That's why we do it - not
because someone's said it'll be the next single if we
put it in the set, but because its suck a fucking buzz.
Before we went on-stage at Brixton, you couldn't have
injected me with any drug that would've made me feel
better than that. Any more than that and I would've
felt ill - my head wouldn't have been able to handle
it. It was like tripping to the max!"

" I can't
explain it any better than that, but that's why you
do it. I mean, I'm seriously frightened of becoming
Gary Glitter, cos I reckon I'll be firestarting until
I'm 60, with this beer belly, thinking I've still
got it. I won't have to shave my head down the middle
cause it will be bald. " "Fuel my Fire is more
of a punk rock sound, and ending on that note is just
like , fucking have this!," interjects Liam. "That
says it all. There will probably be tunes on the new
album (which is due early next year) which some may
not particularly like, but you have to remember that
on an album I like to build a whole picture up. 'Jilted'
had its mellower moments. But to get the maximum high,
you have to have the lows too... " An hour later,
The Prodigy explode onto the stage. As ever, tonight's
show is immense, beyond description. You should kill
to see them. Afterwards, soaked in sweat, Keith Flint
is already gagging for the next show, the next assault. "To
walk offstage one day and think that's your last show
seems more frightening than death........... " he
says. "Fucking prolonged death. "